W iley

W orkin g H ours and C onditions d u rin g th e In d u strial R evolution: A R e-A ppraisal

A uthor(s): Eric H opkins
Source: The Econom ic H isto ry Review, New Series, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), pp. 52-66
Published by: Wiley on b eh alf o f th e Economic History Society
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 Working Hours and Conditions during
the Industrial Revolution:
A Re-Appraisal
By ERIC HOPKINS

lthough it is generally acknowledged that working conditions might

A be harsh and hours of work lengthy before the onset of industrial change
in the second half of the eighteenth century, there is still general agreement
that work discipline subsequently intensified. This is seen as occurring not
only in textile factories but also in other places of work as industrial capitalism
tightened its grip on the labour force. The classic statement of this belief is to
be found in E. P. Thompson’s article in P a st& Present in 1967,1 and other
historians have expressed similar views, even though their approach in other
respects is markedly different from Thompson’s. Thus J. D. Chambers
remarked that the labour force in the Industrial Revolution was not only very
much larger, but was worked very much harder.2 M. I. Thomis has made the
point that the Hammonds argued that the growth of the domestic industries
in the half century after the introduction of steam power was accompanied by
deteriorating conditions, and (says Thomis) ‘few would quarrel with this view
today’ .3 In a recent work, Duncan Bythell clearly regards all out-workers
throughout the nineteenth century as sweated labour, and suggests that the
depressing story is almost unchanged from the handloom weaver and frame­
work knitter of the 1830s and 40s to the nailmaker and needlewoman of the
1880s and 1890s.4 It appears, then, that whether a worker was employed in a
textile factory (the most extreme case) or in a small workshop, he suffered a
marked deterioration in his life at work— the obvious consequence of the
quickening pace of industrialization. Only in the second half of the nineteenth
century was there any general reduction in the length of the working day
and/or improvement in working conditions. Pollard seems to sum up this view
of the earlier period when he observes in a colourful metaphor that the modern
industrial proletariat was “not allowed to grow in a sunny garden: it was
forged, over a fire, by the powerful blows of a hammer” .5
Yet in spite of this weight of opinion, some doubts must remain. Even
Thompson admits that the imposition of the new work routines was a slow
process, sometimes taking several generations (as in the Potteries), and was
perhaps never fully accomplished in all sectors of industry.6 Moreover, it is
1 E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’ , Past & Present, 38 (1967), pp.
56-97 .
2J. D. Chambers, Population, Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial England (1972), p. 149.
3 Malcolm I. Thomis, The Town Labourer and the Industrial Revolution (1974), p. 89.
4 Duncan Bythell, The Sweated Trades: Outwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain (1978), p. 203.
5 S. Pollard, Genesis of Modem Management (1965), p. 207.
6 Thompson, T im e, Work-Discipline . . p. 90.

52
well-known that in 1851 the numbers employed in the non-mechanized
industries (about 55 millions) were more than three times as great as those in
the mechanized industries (about if million, including coal),7 and that the two
largest occupations in 1851, agriculture and domestic service, were certainly
not mechanized; while the fourth largest industry (cotton was the third largest)
was building,8 an industry with an organization which Mathias has called
positively medieval. Further, the size of most industrial work units still seems
to have been very small outside the textile industry.9 It follows that if the new
discipline was to be a reality for the working classes as a whole, and not merely
for the textile factory workers and some others in large work places, then it
must have made itself felt in the lives of the majority of men and women who
were employed in domestic workshops, or in small workshops outside the
home, or in ironworks, brickyards, tanneries, ropewalks, shipyards, glass­
works, and so on. How did this come about by 1850? By an extension of daily
or weekly working hours? By a quickening of the pace of work? By a general
process of introducing a greater regularity of employment, cutting out or
reducing days off and set holidays? And if it did happen, was it produced by
the conscious will of the employers, or insensibly by the operation of economic
forces resulting from industrialization?
The principal aim of this article is to assess the extent to which new labour
habits were either imposed upon or formed by the industrial labour force by
the mid-nineteenth century, primarily in Birmingham and the Black Country,
but also, by implication, in the nation as a whole. Birmingham and the Black
Country have been chosen for this exercise because together they constituted
a large industrialized area by 1851, with an estimated population in that year
of 637,ooo10 (over twice the size of the largest industrial town, Manchester)
and a wide range of domestic and small master industries as well as ironworks,
glasshouses, tanneries, brickworks, and coal, iron-ore, and clay mines. It
could, of course, be suggested that Birmingham and the Black Country were
somehow different from all other industrial areas in the strength of local
paternalism and the low level of unionization at this time, but the fact of
relatively good labour relations in the area would not necessarily prevent the
adoption by employers of whatever methods would maximize profits. Birm­
ingham in particular had an energetic and thriving class of employers, who
would be unlikely to fail to respond to national economic trends, or (to put it
plainly) to fail to get as much out of their workers as they could. Hence it
seems that a survey of this area should provide a valuable indication of change
in work habits outside the textile factory system.

I
To deal with Birmingham first: before the mid-eighteenth century, Birm­
ingham was well-known for its manufacture of guns and swords, and for a
7 J. D. Chambers, The Workshop of the World (1961), p. 21.
8 J. H. Clapham, An Economic History of Modem Britain (Cambridge, 1932), II, p. 24.
9 See the Table in Clapham, ibid. p. 35.
10 G. C. Allen, The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860-1927 (2nd edition,
1966), Appendix A , Table I.
growing toy (i.e. trinket) trade.11 After 1750, the toy trade continued to
flourish, together with guns, jewellery, buttons, silver plating, papier-mache,
japanning, and brass and copper manufacture. By the mid-nineteenth century,
the four major trades were those of jewellery, buttons, gun-making, and brass
(especially for brass cocks, and gauges on steam engines, and domestic
fittings). The principal occupations in 1851 were as follows:
Male Female Total Male Female Total
Domestic servants 711 7648 8359 Goldsmiths, silversmiths 2494 2494
Tailors 1619 390 2009 Other workers in gold
Milliners 3597 3597 and silver 422 73 i 1153
Messengers, porters 2283 2283 Brassfounders 4914 4914
Gunsmiths 2727 140 2867 Buttonmakers 2120 2860 4980
Workers in mixed metals 1997 1781 3778
Iron manufacture 2015 2015
Other workers, dealers,
in iron and steel 1806 2040 3846
Labourers 3909 3909

Source: Printed Census returns, 1851.

From this list it will be apparent that very few Birmingham industries
necessarily required large-scale working. Thus in 1833 it was reported that
there was no establishment in Birmingham where children were collected to
work together in large numbers, and that a very large proportion of work was
paid for by piece and was given out to be executed in the homes of the work
people. The one exception cited was the pin factory of Richard Phipson, where
130 children were employed.12 In fact, there were other pin or button factories
where considerable numbers of children worked— for example, Thomas
Ledsam and Sons employed 87 children out of a total work force of 318— but
on the basis of the limited evidence available it seems that larger establishments
were exceptional at this time, and that steam power was used only to a limited
extent.13 Phipsons, for instance, used steam of only 4 hp, hired from an
adjoining engine, while Ledsams similarly used steam from a factory next
door.14 On the other hand, John Turner, another button manufacturer, who
employed up to 160 workers, including over 100 children, used neither steam
nor water power. He also employed over 350 outworkers.15 It seems likely,
therefore, that in the 1830s the large establishment was unusual, and where it
did exist it had no close affinities with the typical textile factory. Significantly,
there was only one workshop criticized by the visiting commissioners for the
ill-treatment of children in 1833, and that was Phipson’s.
11 Ibid. Part I, Chapter II, and Part II, Chapter I together discuss the major trades before and during the
Industrial Revolution. The principal other source, of course, is W. H. B. Court, The Rise of the Midland
Industries, 1600-1838 (Oxford, 1938). Contemporary sources such as the well-known William Hutton,
History of Birmingham (1st edition, 1781) list trades but are otherwise unhelpful for the subject under
discussion.
12Factory Enquiry Commission (P.P. 1833, xx), 1st Report; report on Birmingham by Mr Horner, p. 2
and p. 9.
13 See Court, Midland Industries, p. 257, for a table showing the use of steam power in Birmingham in
1835. However important steam power was in the iron industry, it was not essential for the use of the press,
stamp, lathe, and draw bench for wire, all of which are described by Hawkes Smith without reference to
steam power: William Hawkes Smith, Birmingham and its Vicinity (1836), Pt. Ill, pp. 9-16. See also Allen,
Industrial Development, pp. 106-7 for the use of man-powered presses and stamps.
14 Horner’s Report, p. 7.
15 Ibid. p. 6.
 Ten years later the situation was fundamentally unaltered, and the expansion
of trade had led, not to widespread mechanization based on steam power, but
to an increasing number of small-scale employers. Not only was there a great
multiplicity of trades (97) but also a great number of firms (2,100); yet we are
told there were still no large and crowded factories similar to those in the
cotton districts. Instead, the dominant unit of production was the workshop,
in which children and young persons were employed in numbers ranging from
three or four up to 50, 60 or even 100.16 It therefore seems that by about the
mid-century the factory system as it was known in Lancashire had still to
become widely established in Birmingham. Large-scale enterprises could be
found, of course, and steam power was increasingly used, but they did not
constitute the norm, nor were they a new development: in the 1760s Birming­
ham already housed Mathew Boulton’s Soho factory and John Taylor’s button
factory. Rather, it was the small master who was the typical employer. As far
as overhead costs were concerned, therefore, there was no equivalent to the
buildings, machinery, and steam engines the expense of which had to be met
by long hours and unremitting labour in the cotton factories. How far, in fact,
had hours lengthened, the pace of work quickened, and work discipline
intensified in Birmingham by the middle decades of the century?
In spite of the fragmentary nature of evidence concerning eighteenth century
working hours, there seems no reason to doubt that domestic industry in
Birmingham worked as irregular hours as elsewhere, with little work done at
the beginning of the week and very lengthy hours towards the end. By the
1830s the normal working day in Birmingham in the larger establishments was
considered to be 12 hours, less two hours for meals, i.e. a ten hour day; though
longer hours might be worked by children in domestic workshops.17 Here, of
course, St Monday would still operate, as it did to a certain extent in the larger
workplaces. In 1843 the hours of work in these places were unchanged at 12
hours, less an hour or half an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner, with
sometimes 20 minutes or half an hour off for tea. The larger works usually
closed for a week or fortnight at Christmas to take stock, but when this was
not done, two or three days or a week at some other time in the year would be
allowed. There were also one or two days given off at Easter and Whitsuntide,
and often the same allowance on the occasion of fairs and wakes.18 In the
domestic workshops irregular working continued, and by the 1860s the
prevalence of this traditional pattern of work was attracting much unfavourable
comment. Thus it was said that an enormous amount of time was being lost
not only by unpunctuality in coming to work in the morning and beginning
again after meals, but by St Monday— ‘a licence which is often extended to a
part of Tuesday also” .19 It must be emphasized that St Monday was not merely
a survival of earlier practices still being observed by the small minority of
workers in domestic industry: in Birmingham large numbers of industrial

16 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xiv) Appendix to 2nd Report; report by R. D. Grainger,
at F17 and F18.
17 Factory Enquiry Commission (P.P. 1833, xx), Horner’s Report, p. 2.
18 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xiv), Grainger’s Report at F19, F21.
19 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1864, xxn), 3rd Report, p. xi.
workers were still engaged in small workshops in the 1860s20 and therefore
were subject to St Monday, while even those in larger workplaces were affected
by it. According to the visiting commissioner, J. E. White, one employer in
1864 had only about 40 or 50 workers in on a Monday out of a total work force
of 300 to 400, while on Mondays generally White found few works fully and
some very partially employed. In one large foundry the casters were getting to
work for the first time in the week towards midday on Tuesday.21 There can
be no doubt of the prevalance of St Monday in the area until well past the
mid-century.22
It seems reasonable to suppose that the major cause of this was the continued
existence of handicrafts (some, but not all of them of a skilled nature) organized
for the most part on the domestic system, with some kind of factor or putter-
out as a key figure. When demand increased, it was met by the employment
of more labour in small workshops, and not by the installation of steam-driven
machinery. In this way, production could be stepped up, though without
necessarily any increase in productivity. It is true that in some sectors of
industry elsewhere, especially in textile manufacture and in primary iron
production, there was a very great increase in productivity in the period
1760-1830; but there is no reason to suppose that this development followed
automatically in other industries. The most obvious ways in which productivity
might have increased in domestic industry was by the adoption of more efficient
hand tools, or by the imposition of a stricter work discipline.23 However, the
only machine used in the majority of Birmingham workshops in the first half
of the nineteenth century was the hand-operated stamp, and although this
must have improved productivity initially, its use hardly necessitated a change
to a new, rigid work routine. Thus, even if it could be shown that output per
man increased during this period in the small workshop, this increase could
have been achieved without any drastic change in work discipline. In fact,
there seems no doubt that traditional work habits continued in Birmingham
during the first half of the nineteenth century, and in particular the practice
of taking things easy at the beginning of the week, and of working very long
hours at the end. Habits of this kind were so widespread and deep-rooted that
they affected even the larger establishments, as we have seen. Indeed, Allen
has gone as far as to argue that both in the domestic workshops and in the
majority of factories the men and women worked irregular hours and often
tried to concentrate the whole week’s labour into three days. Only where a
large proportion of the work force consisted of unskilled or female workers
could the employer put down “this voluntary absenteeism” .24
20 By 1870 firms employing more than 500 persons probably numbered less than 20; in the factory
returns of 1871 there were 4,873 establishments with 92,799 workers, or less than 20 per firm on average.
The returns excluded the smallest premises not subject to the Acts, so that the average unit was really less
than 20. Thus, the small business still predominated. Victoria County History, Warwickshire, VII (1964), p.
128.
21 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1864, xxn), 3rd Report; J. E. White’s report, p. 57.
22 Douglas A. Read, T h e Decline of St. Monday, 1776-1876’, P a st& Present, 71 (1976), pp. 77-84.
23 Raphael Samuel has suggested reasons why hand-labour was often preferable to the adoption of a
machine technology, and he also believes that productivity within a hand technology might be increased
either by the introduction of improved tools or by a more systematic exploitation of labour, or by both. He
asserts, too, that handicrafts were quite as dynamic as high technology, and just as subject to the new work
discipline: Raphael Samuel, ‘The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in mid-
Victorian Britain’ , History Workshop, 3 (1977), p. 49 and p. 60.
24 Allen, Industrial Development, pp. 166, 167, 169.
 The implications of all this are clear enough. There may be some danger, of
course, of overstating the extent of the observance of traditional patterns of
work in Birmingham by the mid-century, and Read has argued that such
patterns were fast disappearing in the 1860s with the increasing use of steam
power and Saturday half-days.25 Nevertheless, before 1850 they were a reality
for probably the majority of workers in Birmingham, who were very far from
submitting to the rigours of the textile factory system. Even in the larger
establishments, where considerable numbers of children were employed and
one might expect something akin to a factory discipline, it does not seem that
the children were being overworked by the standards of the day. Only two
workplaces, those of Phipson and of Palmer & Holt, were criticized in 1843
for ill-using children, but these were “ strikingly opposed to the general good
usage of children in Birmingham” .26 As far as the smaller workplaces are
concerned, the factor or middleman in all probability was simply not interested
in changing the old routines as long as he got the work in on time and at the
right price or wage. The major influence on the daily work practices of the
average Birmingham worker in the first half of the nineteenth century was
likely to be the effect of the trade cycle and of war, as for example in 1812 and
in the early 1840s. There is really very little evidence to show that his weekly
total of hours of labour, or the pace at which he was forced to work, or the
number of days he had off for holiday27 were affected to any marked extent
before 1850 by the increased economic activity in the area, or indeed by the
development of the new factory discipline in the North.

II
However, in the Black Country the situation might be thought to be very
different because although there was plenty of domestic industry there were
in addition large-scale ironworks, together with coal mines, brickyards,
tanneries, breweries, rope-walks, and other non-domestic workplaces.28 O f
these industries, the iron industry expanded at a striking rate from the 1780s
onwards, as a result principally of the increasing use of steam power which
freed the industry from reliance on water power, which was not freely available
in the Black Country. It has been estimated that Staffordshire production of
pig iron jumped from 6,900 tons in 1788 to 125,000 tons in 1815, thereby
increasing the region’s contribution to national output from 9.8 per cent to

25 Read, ‘Decline of St. Monday’ , pp. 84-98.

26 Children’s Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xiv), Grainger’s report at F23.
27 In the 1860s Mr J. E. White thought the actual holidays were ample, whether allowed off or not. In
addition to St Monday, there were the local fetes, and the annual trip to Malvern or elsewhere. Half-day
working on Saturdays was found in many factories, though in some it was made good by extra work in the
early part of the week: Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1864, xxn), 3rd Report, J. E. White’s
report, p. 57.
28 For the area covered by the Black Country, see the map in Allen, Industrial Development, p. x.
31.6 per cent.29 Production increased further thereafter in South Staffordshire
to 346,213 tons in 1839, reaching 725,000 tons in 1852.30
This marked expansion in the iron industry obviously required a greatly
increased labour force, both on the primary side (pig iron, and bar or finished
iron) and in hardware. Furthermore, blast furnaces increased in size with the
change to mineral fuel, and the use of steam power meant that campaigns were
no longer limited to the winter months, when water power was in good
supply.31 Hence in many iron works the scale and regularity of work must
have increased considerably. It is difficult to say what the working day was in
Black Country ironworks before the expansion of the industry, but most likely
it was the customary twelve hours less time off for meals.32 Towards the end
of the eighteenth century, for example, the Coalbrookdale Company was
working a twelve-hour shift, less i j hours off for meals.33 By the mid­
nineteenth century, the shift appears to have remained at 12 hours, less meals.
Certainly this was the shift at John Bradley & Co., Stourbridge, where in
common with other large iron works a printed list of work regulations was
given to every workman, with fines specified for breaches of the rules.
Ironworks generally in the Black Country by the 1860s were working 12 hour
shifts, with i i hours allowed for meals.34
It appears then that the working day in Black Country ironworks remained
unchanged throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, though how far
the pace of work quickened as works grew larger must remain a matter for
conjecture. Certainly the existence of printed rules to be observed by the
workers seems to indicate an effort to apply a more rigorous work discipline,35
but some rules were obviously necessary in the larger establishments where
the proprietor could not exercise personal supervision over all activities, and
where many jobs were dangerous, such as working on blast or puddling
furnaces, transporting molten metal, or operating steam-driven rolls, blowers,
and hammers. Where wrought iron was made, it was impossible to hurry a
heat if good metal was to be produced because the necessary chemical changes
could not be speeded up. Further, men and boys worked in teams on furnaces,
rolls, and hammers, and the team had to work at its own pace to achieve the
best results. The team was usually paid as a unit, the master puddler (for
instance) paying the assistant puddlers who worked on his furnaces. For all
these reasons, it is difficult to see how a work discipline similar to that of the
textile factory could be developed in the ironworks. The emphasis was more
likely to be on trying to achieve a greater regularity of attendance and better
quality work than on an actual speeding-up of the work processes. Certainly
irregularity of attendance at work continued to be a problem in some Black

29 Charles K . Hyde, Technological Change and the British Iron Industry, 1700-1870 (1977), p. 114.
30 B. R. Mitchell & P. Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 131.
31 Hyde, Technological Change, pp. 118-19.
32 M. A. Bienefeld, Working Hours in British Industry: An Economic History (1972), pp. 25-6.
33 A. Raistrick, Dynasty of Ironfounders: the Darbys and Coalbrookdale (1953), p. 298.
34 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xv), Appendix to 2nd Report, Pt. II, evidence at q8i;
Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1864, xxn), 3rd Report, p. iv, and Mr Longe’s report, pp.2-4;
Rules and Articles of John Bradley & Co. in possession of the firm.
35 Rules of this kind date from the earliest days in the textile industry: see R. S. Fitton & A. P.
Wadsworth, The Strutts and the Arkwrights (Manchester, 1964), pp. 235-6.
Country ironworks throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.36
To turn to mining: here, two basic facts are reasonably certain. The first is
that the standard day shift in the 1840s was of the customary length for a day’s
work in the area, that is, 12 hours less an hour for dinner. There were no night
shifts, and work ended earlier on Saturdays.37 The second is that St Monday
was very common, particularly in some pits on alternate Mondays following
the Saturday on which the men were paid.38 Some pits closed from Saturday
afternoon to Tuesday morning. According to Tremenheere it was “ beyond all
probability that any number of men could be got to work on a Monday” .39
What is uncertain, however, is how much work was actually done within these
limits. It goes without saying that the work of the pikeman (hewer) was both
exhausting and dangerous, especially on this coalfield,40 but it has again been
pointed out recently that it was physically impossible for hewers to work
continuously throughout the whole shift. Since they were on piece rates, they
themselves chose just how hard they would work, and what shifts they could
afford to take off.41 In the Black Country the stint was two yards in, a little
over two feet high, over a three-yard face,42 though pay depended on whether
the “thick” (ten yards seam) or the “thin” was being worked. Younger and
stronger men could hew more than a single stint in a shift, and might do eight
or nine days’ work in a week. Alternatively they might complete the day’s
stint and leave work early.43 Given this flexibility, it is very difficult to assess
what work was done in the average week at any one time, and this difficulty
is compounded by the prevalence of underemployment and by the down
swings of the trade cycle, which produced short-time working. Indeed, even
in relatively prosperous times, short-time working in the Black Country was
common enough, and its effects are easy to overlook. It must also be
remembered that demand for coal fell off during the summer, and short-time
working was usual as a result, miners sometimes taking up some other
employment such as nailing for a while. When all these considerations are
taken together, it is apparent that any simple generalizations about changes in
mining hours and conditions are of doubtful value. Perhaps the major change
was from part-time working down the pit to full-time working,44 but this did
not of itself produce a new work discipline. In 1800 there were complaints
36 Roy Church gives some late eighteenth-century examples at a West Bromwich firm of irregular
attendance and of workmen leaving in the afternoon to spend the rest of the day drinking: R. A. Church,
Kenricks in Hardware: A Family Business, 1791-1966 (1969), pp. 23-4. There are other examples of St
Monday and St Tuesday being kept at Black Country iron works in the first half of the nineteenth century:
in 1837 the leader of a group of men who customarily absented themselves on Mondays and Tuesdays was
tied to a cart by the works boys at Orme & Foster, Stourbridge, and drawn by them through the town
‘being assailed at every corner by the yells and hisses of the people’ : Kidderminster Messenger, 16 June 1837.
Even in the 1860s it was observed by the assistant secretary of the S. Staffs Ironmasters Association that S.
Staffs, ironworkers were ‘vivacious pleasure seekers, and hence St Monday is observed as a general district
holiday’ . See Samuel Timmins, ed. Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District (1866), p. 75.
37Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1842, xvi), Appendix to 1st Report, Mines, Pt. I, p. 8 ff.
38 Ibid.
39 Tremenheere’s Report on the Mining Districts of South Staffordshire (1850), p. 19.
40Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1842, xvi)), Apendix to 1st Report, Mines, Pt. I, p. 8 ff.;
Mines Inspectors Report, 1854.
41 John Benson, British Coalminers in the Nineteenth-Century: A Social History (1980), pp. 55-62.
42 T . E. Lones, History of Coal Mining in the Black Country (Dudley, 1898), p. 60.
43Midland Mining Commission (P.P. 1843, xm ), 1st Report, p. xxviii.
44 Victoria County History, Staffordshire, II (1967) article by A. J. Taylor, p. 101.
about Staffordshire miners living on the proceeds of two-thirds of a week’s
work and giving over the remainder of the week to “idleness and dissipation” ,45
and this was still the situation in the 1840s and 1850s, as we have seen. Hence,
no great changes in work routine appear to have taken place in the first half of
the nineteenth century. That the work was both perilous and arduous is not
open to question, and that the men had plenty of complaints against the butty
or chartermaster is also well-known;46 but it is noticeable that they did not
complain to Tremenheere about lengthening hours or stricter work discipline.
Since the work situation was so different from employment in a textile factory,
this is not surprising.
Coal mines (which included the extraction of iron ore and clay, sometimes
in the same pit) and ironworks were the two major sources of employment in
the Black Country away from home.47 In other non-domestic workplaces, the
twelve-hour day, less time off for meals, seems the norm by the mid-century,
subject to the completion of stints where appropriate. Thus, in firebrick yards,
the women and girls worked the twelve-hour day, though the stint was 1,000
bricks, and they could leave earlier if they completed the stint before
knocking-off time.48 Working hours in tanneries seemed to conform to the
twelve-hour rule, but could be longer in the summer when more mutton was
killed.49 Glasshouse working depended on whether it was crown and plate
glass which was being manufactured, or flint glass tableware. If plate glass,
then the “ journey” or shift would be nine to eleven hours; if flint glass, the
cutters would work the usual twelve-hour day, while the makers worked 6
hours on, 6 hours off throughout the week, with either Monday or Friday
off.50
Lastly, among the principal Black Country trades there are the many metal
trades carried out in domestic workshops. O f these, nailing is the best known,
and probably employed more workers than any other trade.51 The trade was
widespread throughout the Black Country, the greatest numbers being in the
Dudley and Stourbridge area. Chain-making was also important (centred on
Cradley), with harness and horse furniture in Walsall, nuts and bolts in
Darleston, and locks in Wolverhampton.52 In addition, spades and edged
tools, anvils, vices, hammers, files, and other hand tools were made throughout
the area, but more especially in Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Dudley.
45 H. G. MacNab, ‘Observations on Probable Consequences of . . . attempting . . . to obtain a large
supply of coal from Staffs to the Metropolis’ (1801), quoted by Taylor, p. 102.
46 Tremenheere, Report, pp. 17-18.
47 In Dudley, Walsall, and West Bromwich, coalmining was the largest single male occupation in 18$ 1,
while in Wolverhampton the number of coalminers (1,422) was about the same as the number of locksmiths
(1,446): Printed Census Returns, 1851.
48 Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xv), 2nd Report, Appendix, Pt. II, at Q89 for evidence
regarding Stourbridge firebrick works, which are also described in Mr White’s report in the 3rd Report of
the 1862 Commission, p. 14. In red brick works, in other areas, hours could be longer and the stint larger:
Mr Longe’s Report on Brickyards of S. & N. Staffs, and other places, 5th Report, pp. 152-3.
49 See, for example, Mr White’s report, Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1864, xxn), 3rd Report,
p. 141.
50 Flint Glass Makers Magazine, 11 (1854), p. 1; Children's Employment Commission (P. P. 1864, xx), 4th
Report, Mr White’s report on Glass.
51 For numbers at the beginning of the nineteenth century, see Court, Midland Industries, pp. 196-7,
Timmins, Birmingham, p. 111; for numbers in Birmingham and the Black Country combined (the vast
majority being in the Black Country), see Allen, Industrial Development, p. 459.
52 See Timmins, Birmingham, for separate articles on the different trades of the Black Country.
 All these metalware trades followed the traditional work patterns for
domestic workships, that is, they took things easy on Monday and Tuesday,
working longer hours towards the end of the week and sometimes working all
night on Friday. Thus, the working day was often very long on Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday— 13 or 14 hours inclusive of meals was common,
sometimes longer. Nailing hours were notoriously long, for it was a relatively
unskilled and usually ill-paid job, but the long hours were worked for only
part of the week, being especially long when trade was depressed. Thus, in
1812 a working day might stretch to 16 or even 18 hours because the war had
affected the American market very badly, so that pay dropped per piece and
hours lengthened accordingly. The nominal day subsequently went back to 12
hours, and this was still the length of the day by the middle of the century.
Although machine-made nails came on to the market in the 1830s they do not
appear to have affected the trade very seriously until improved machinery was
introduced in the 1860s.53
From this survey of working conditions in the Black Country it may be
concluded that conditions did not change very markedly for most workers in
the first half of the nineteenth century. Admittedly, only the major male
occupations have been discussed; but it seems unlikely that conditions changed
materially for the substantial groups of general labourers, or women domestic
servants or the milliners which were to be found throughout the region.
Indeed, if the pattern of work habits remained more or less the same, the one
place where a more rigorous work discipline might be found would appear to
be the large ironworks. Yet even here the difficulty of speeding-up and
intensifying work on furnaces has been touched on. Furthermore, the number
of really large-scale ironworks was comparatively small. O f the 217 employers
in iron manufacture in the West Midland counties in 1851 (Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire)
eleven declared in the Census returns that they employed no men at all, or
failed to state a number; of the remaining 206, seven employed between 100
and 200, four between 200 and 300, and five employed 350 or more. This is a
total of only 16 employing upwards of 100 men each. On the other hand, 175
employed less than 50; and about half of the total making returns— 104 out of
206— employed less than 10.54 The typical ironworks was therefore still small,
and it is difficult to believe that work discipline in such places was other than
traditional. Nor is an answer to be found in a reduction in the number of
holidays. Days were taken off at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, and firm
outings were common; 400 workmen from Bradley & Co’s ironworks, Stour­
bridge, visited the Great Exhibition in 1851. At the end of the nineteenth
century the workers at Kenricks in West Bromwich took their annual holiday
of ten days in July during stocktaking, the total time taken in holidays
53 On nailing hours in 1812, see Court, Midland Industries, pp. 210-11, quoting Attwood before the
House of Commons Select Committee on Petitions against the Orders in Council; for hours in the 1840s,
see for example Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xv), 2nd Report, Appendix, Pt. II, minutes
of evidence, QQ74-80. In the second half of the century, hours remained more or less as before: see Reports
of Inspectors of Factories, April 1874, report by Mr Brewer; Report of the Commissioners to the Enquiry
into the Working of the Factory and Workshops Acts (P.P. 1876, xxx), II, pp. 84-6. On the change to
machine-made nails, see E. I. Davies, The Hand-Made Nail Trade of Birmingham and District (unpublished
Birmingham M .A. thesis, 1951).
54 Census Returns, 1851, Division VI, West Midlands Counties, Employers, with numbers of men.
(including fair days and religious holidays) being about three weeks.55 Black
Country workers in domestic industry similarly had days off at Easter and
Christmas, and nailers and others also spent a week or more in August in
harvesting and hop-picking.56
It is thus difficult to demonstrate the lengthening of hours and intensification
of work discipline generally in the Black Country and Birmingham during the
period up to the mid-nineteenth century. The most that can be said is that
work may have been provided more regularly for industrial workers, and
underemployment may have lessened during this time; and that more overtime
may have been worked in the larger establishments.57 However, against this
possibility of a steadier rhythm of employment must be set the undoubted fact
that short-time working was common in the area in the first half of the
nineteenth century, and the rapid swing from prosperity to depression and
back again is very marked.58 Sometimes depression could mean no work at
all, while at other times it led to extended hours because piece rates had been
lowered (as in 1812) and it was necessary to work longer to earn the same pay.
Even then, workers often clung to St Monday, preferring to work the extra
hours later in the week. What is still missing from the picture is any sign that
working hours and conditions had undergone permanent deterioration.

Ill
How far is all this exceptional when one surveys the national scene? Only a
detailed examination of each major industrial region can supply the answer,
but the general point may again be made that it would be surprising if the
workers in non-mechanized industry elsewhere worked very different hours
from those in Birmingham and the Black Country. St Monday was certainly
well-known in other parts of the kingdom.59 Further, it must be remembered
that the two largest occupations in 1851— agriculture and domestic service—
were almost completely non-mechanized and followed traditional work
routines. If one looks at it another way, and examines the larger towns in
1851, the number which were still either (on the whole) non-industrial like
Bristol (population 137,000), Plymouth (90,000), Hull (85,000), Portsmouth
(72.000), and Brighton (66,000), or if industrial, lacked wide-spread, large-
scale mechanized industry (e.g. Sheffield, 135,000, Newcastle, 88,000) is
interesting and indeed remarkable. When compared with these towns, the
well-known factory towns of Manchester (303,000), Leeds (172,000), Bradford
(104.000), Preston (70,000), and Salford (64,000) are outnumbered.60 This
55 Church, Kenricks, p. 279.
56 J. Noake, The Rambler (1854); Edinburgh Review, April 1863.
57 The one specific reference to overtime in Grainger’s report published in 1843 is the statement that in
Birmingham there was little overtime worked, and that night work was scarcely known in the town—
Children's Employment Commission (P.P. 1843, xiv), Appendix to 2nd Report, at F19, minute 173; but
obviously overtime was worked from time to time and some witnesses refer to it in the 1863 reports.
58 For a discussion of the problems of assessing variations in trade in the area, see my article, ‘Small
Town Aristocrats of Labour and their Standard of Living, 1840-1914’ , Economic History Review, 2nd ser.
xxxvm (1975), p. 223.
59 Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline . . .’ gives examples, pp. 72-9. It was common among coalminers
in all coal fields. See Benson, British Coalminers, pp. 58-9. Pollard supplies interesting examples for the
Sheffield area: A History of Labour in Sheffield (Liverpool, 1959), p. 211.
60 Mitchell & Deane, Abstract, pp. 24-6.
comparison is somewhat crude and unrefined, of course, but it helps to
reinforce the argument that the majority of workers was still not subject to
factory discipline in 1851. London, with a population of 2.4m, was in a class
of its own, but working hours for a large number of trades seem to have been
reduced, by about a sixth during the period of the 1770s to the 1820s.61 In
general terms, the evidence appears to support the contention that there was
no marked deterioration of working conditions during the classic period of the
Industrial Revolution for the majority of workers. An important qualification
must be made to take account of the textile workers whose factory hours were
lengthened in the early part of the century but were reduced by legislation by
1850. To their numbers should be added the handloom weavers, stockingers
and others whose trades were affected either by overcrowding or by competi­
tion from machinery; but these workers were in the minority.
To suggest such a revision of commonly accepted views of the effect of
industrialization on the working classes is, of course, to invite disagreement,
especially from those who follow Thompson in believing that
. . . by the division o f labour; the supervision of labour; fines; bells and clocks;
money incentives; preachings and schoolings; the suppression of fairs and sport—
new labour habits were formed, and a new time discipline was imposed .62
One can only respond to this by pointing out that however true this might be
of textile factory workers in the first half of the nineteenth century, it certainly
does not appear that new labour habits were being formed or that a new time
discipline was imposed in Birmingham and the Black Country. Moreover, this
may well hold good for other areas which also lacked the factory system. It is
significant that when Thompson proposes in his article to “glance briefly at
the attempt to impose time-thrift in the domestic manufacturing districts” , all
he offers as illustrative evidence are examples of moralizing advice to working
people such as J. Clayton’s Friendly Advice to the Poor (1755). Pollard
understandably concentrates on the development of factory discipline (given
the subject of his book), and does not discuss the situation in the workshop
and domestic trades. Thomis has dealt with the handworkers at length, but
his major emphasis is on handloom weavers, woolcombers and lacemakers,
and he pays little attention to the many handworkers who were not faced
directly by technological change.63 Bythell confines himself to outwork trades
subject to sweating, but admits that the metal trades of Birmingham and
Sheffield are largely excluded from his study.64 Neither Thomis nor Bythell
provides evidence to show deteriorating conditions for trades such as the
building trades— carpenters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, plumbers—
whose numbers were hardly insignificant in 1851; in fact, they are not far
short of the total of cotton workers at the same date (443,000 compared with
527,000). One would like to know also how working conditions changed for
some of the other large occupational groups, such as the skilled wood
trades— sawyers, wheelwrights and shipwrights together numbered nearly
61 L. D. Schwarz, ‘Conditions of Life and Work in London, c. 1770-1820, with special reference to East
London’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford,1976), p. 330.
62 Thompson, ‘Time, Work-Discipline . . .’, p. 90.
63 Thomis, The Town Labourer, ch. V, ‘The Handworkers’.
64 Bythell, The Sweated Trades, p. 14.
100,000 in 1851. Indeed, it would appear that the disproportionate attention
devoted to textile factories and the worsening conditions of handloom weavers
and stockingers has led to the unquestioned assumption that all industrial
trades suffered a deterioration of conditions before 1850. In fact, the evidence
is hardly conclusive, and Bienefeld has suggested that for hours to lengthen
“a ratchet had to be overcome” , and this was most easily achieved when
capitalization in an industry was high, or when industry underwent a geogra­
phical shift, or when it relied heavily on women and children.65 In the small
firms of Birmingham and the Black Country and in the thousands of domestic
workshops capitalization was low or minute, there was no geographical shift
of the work force, and although many women and children were engaged in
small workshops they were reliant upon male fellow workers for their work
routines and were not as vulnerable to exploitation as Bienefeld implies.
If work discipline did not show much change before 1850 in the Birmingham
region, when did the change to more regular employment take place? As far
as Birmingham is concerned, it seems to have occurred in the second half of
the nineteenth century, although the timing and causes of the change are open
to dispute: according to Allen, it was in the 1890s that a mechanical revolution,
based on oil and gas engines, electric motors, drilling machines, steam and
hydraulic stamps, and better machine tools led to much larger work units and
a need for more regular employment.66 More recently, the decline of St
Monday has been ascribed to the acceptance of Monday working by the
workers in return for half-day working on Saturdays— a development which
took place much earlier than the 1890s.67 In the Black Country, the change
also began after the mid-century, but was far from complete by 1914, possibly
because the decline of the iron and coal industries slowed down industrial
change. In coal mining, by 1890 the average daily hours bank to bank in the
S. Staffs, and E. Worcs. coalfield were 8.44 hours for all workers below
ground.68 Although employment was offered on six days a week, Monday was
often a half-day, while some pits were then closed altogether.69 Thus, the
reduction in the working day came long before the Eight Hours Act of 1908,
while St Monday was still being observed at the end of the century. In the
ironworks, the turn had decreased to eleven hours by the 1890s. In 1892 the
week consisted of four turns of six heats, with a final turn of five heats lasting
eight or nine hours on the Saturday. Puddlers began either on Monday night
finishing on Saturday morning, or on Tuesday morning finishing at two or
three o’clock on Saturday afternoon.70 It is interesting to note that about this
time the Midlands Iron and Steel Wages Board recorded its disapproval of
puddlers working the first shift on Mondays because it necessitated Sunday
labour.71 The routine week of the early 1890s was unchanged as late as 1913.72
Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth centurv, in the two major
65 Bienefeld, Working Hours, p. 41.
66 Allen, Industrial Development, pp. 314-43.
67 Reid, ‘Decline of St Monday’ .
68B. McCormick & J. E. Williams, T h e Miners and the Eight Hour Day, 1863-1910’ , Econ. Hist. Rev.,
2nd ser. xn (1959), p. 238.
69Royal Commission on Labour (P.P. 1892, xxxvi, Pt. I), II, p. 103.
70 Ibid. p. 353.
7 1 Stourbridge Advertiser, 22 August 1891.

72 Ibid. 1 March 1913.

industries of the Black Country, there are no signs of any new work disciplines
resulting from intensifying industrialization. As for other industries, the
restrictions imposed on women’s hours by the Factory Acts now applied to
workshops and other workplaces. In brickmaking at the turn of the century
the hours remained at io| maximum: the usual working day was from 6 a.m.
to 5 or 6 p.m. with i| hours off for meals, and with shorter hours in the
winter. Women often worked in the dinner hour so as to complete the stint
and get away early.73 In other industries which employed women, the 1O2
hour limitation served to keep the hours down for all, the one exception being
in the dying trade of nailing where the 105 hours might be worked at any time
between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. Since it was not customary to inspect workshops
where only the man and his wife were working, nor to proceed against a man
for overworking his wife, the nailing wife was still effectively unprotected.
Moreover, a woman who hired a stall or bench became an occupier, and could
not be prosecuted for overworking herself.74 St Monday was still observed in
nailing workshops at the end of the century,75 but even so, hours were shorter
and pay was better in local factories such as hollow-ware factories. Indeed, life
was better for women in the workshops and factories subject to inspection
than in the domestic workshops which remained.76 Only in nailing is there
anything to suggest that hours were not shortened and the working environ­
ment not improved in Black Country industry in the second half of the
nineteenth century.

IV
The conclusion remains that in the first half of the last century, when the
new industrial proletariat was supposedly coming into being, the working
hours of the majority of workers in Birmingham and the Black Country do not
appear to have been drastically revised. This is not to argue that no changes at
all took place; it may be that work was more regular because there was less
unemployment or underemployment, or because there was less opportunity to
exercise leisure-preference. Rather than this, however, contemporary sources
suggest frequent short-time working. Again, the growth of industry meant the
transfer of agricultural workers into new workplaces, but it is unlikely that
working hours in agriculture in the first half of the nineteenth century were
any shorter than those in industry, or that the work was less heavy or
monotonous.77 In the second half of the century the old work routines
gradually disappeared, more slowly in the Black Country than in Birming­
ham;78 but they did so within the context of a shortened working day, the
73 Report of Lady Inspectors in Report of Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1901 and 1902.
74 Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System (P.P. 1889, x x ii i ), Third Report, p. 346.
75 Ibid. See also the Report of the Lady Inspectors for 1903.
76 For the position of nailing women generally, see my article ‘The Decline of the Family Work Unit in
Black-Country Nailing’, International Review of Social History, x x ii (1977), pp. 184-97.
77 Thompson himself refers to the ‘intense labour discipline’ of the farm servant and the field labourer,
and suggests that this discipline increased at the end of the eighteenth century: Thompson, ‘Time, Work-
Discipline . . .’, p. 77. See also E. J. T . Collins, ‘Harvest Technology and Labour Supply in Britain,
1790-1870’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. x x ii (1969), pp. 453-73.
78 Long ago Clapham drew attention to the fact that in the country as a whole it took a long time for the
typical worker to become engaged in mechanized industry, the point being reached (as he put it) ‘some
rather long way down the century’ : Clapham, Economic History, I, p. 74. Even this may be to overstate the
case.
introduction of Bank holidays, half-day working on Saturdays, and some
improvement in the working environment. These changes were caused prin­
cipally by the increasing scope of the Factory and Workshop Acts, and also
(to some extent) by trade union action. Even today it is worth recalling that
still only a minority of workers in industry are employed in very large factories
and are subject to the work discipline characteristic of such factories.79 In any
case, the evidence as to irregular and flexible working hours in Birmingham
and the Black Country is clear, and there is little to indicate any major
speeding-up of work processes which might be thought comparable with work
in textile factories. It would be very strange indeed if such an intensification
of work discipline had occurred and yet had failed to attract contemporary
comment. It follows that to suggest that during the classic years of the
Industrial Revolution the majority of workers in this region (and perhaps
elsewhere) were forced to assume new work habits and become the slaves of
a new time discipline is really a very doubtful proposition, and its unthinking
repetition can serve only to perpetuate a historical myth.
University of Birmingham
79 The view has recently been expressed that even where workers were employed in large textile factories
in the second half of the nineteenth century, they still adjusted satisfactorily to the new work discipline as
a result of the factory community’s ‘internalisation of the paternalist ethos’ : see Patrick Joyce, Work, Society
and Politics: the Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (Brighton, 1980), pp. xvi-xvii, and chs. 3,
4, and 5.